Radiohead is releasing its album as a pay-what-you-want venture, Bruce Springsteen is being called unpatriotic and Wu-Tang Clan obtained the rights to sample the Beatles in its new album. The argument of whether Wu-Tang is the first to sample the monolithic rock band followed. They are not - Beastie Boys and Jay-Z both have.
Every artist faces, on a daily basis, the idea of identity controlling who they are. This is a sentiment most college students can relate to, as the game is played in both social and professional settings.
For example, Radiohead, at this point in its career, is almost expected to use its non-label status to do something such as releasing an essentially free album.
On the other hand, Springsteen is supposed to be the backbone of the American working class. He is the most patriotic man on this planet, not because he actually is but because he wears jeans and a white T-shirt and sings, "You work nine to five and somehow you survive until tonight."
Wu-Tang Clan has always been heralded for being at the forefront of rap, and being the first to sample the most important rock band in history would certainly keep it there.
But ...
Radiohead might stand to profit heavily from its interesting move because its fans are extremely loyal. Not to mention to obtain a "discbox," fans must pay 40 pounds (or roughly $81).
Springsteen protests the war because he is extremely American to the core. He cannot imagine the people who idolize him going to war - because those are the people who are dying in the desert halfway across the world.
Wu-Tang Clan is merely another group in a genre in which the smallest advancement - such as sampling a new artist - is seen as a monumental movement.
They are mere ideas, and the realities of all of them are far removed from these ideas.
On a college campus, these three groups are seen in multiplicitous numbers across the Quad, hanging around the Union, sipping coffee in Middleton Library.
But ...
They are nothing more than mere ideas of who they could be. It seems like an obvious point - all frat boys are not just frat boys, all indie kids are not just indie kids, all religious folk are not just religious folk.
Image does not control identity, and the idea of who one is does not define who one actually is.
But what happens when one becomes so strongly rooted in an idea that he loses sight of the reality of being (e.g., when fraternities begin to kick homosexuals out, and indie kids refuse to acknowledge Kanye West's sick production)?
These examples are on opposite sides of the same self-serving lake of image, but the point remains the same.
Image turns people and artists alike into ideas, and there is nothing left at that point.
Does anyone actually enjoy seeing Bob Dylan live?
I saw him at Austin City Limits Festival a few weekends ago, and it was like listening to a cat being forced through a cheese shredder.
But ...
He is Bob Dylan. He is the idea of wonderful music, so we must listen to him. And we must enjoy him. And if we don't, we don't understand music.
Hmm ...
Then, every once in a while, there are those moments that just shock the idea out of the image.
As I climbed into the car to get lunch with my mother this past weekend, a woman who hasn't looked for music in years, I hear indie sensation Feist blasting out of her Taurus speakers.
Radiohead is still Radiohead, and Springsteen is still Springsteen.
And you are still you.
---- Contact Travis Andrews at tandrews@lsureveille.com
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